Sluggish distribution of relief supplies sparked off shortages - and tempers - across India's tsunami-ravaged tropical Andaman and Nicobar islands, as hundreds of bodies lay undetected around the archipelago a week after tidal waves devastated the region.
The military was put in charge of the relief operation on the islands, but chaotic distribution of water, food and medicines to tens of thousands of dazed and starving survivors by the civilian administration prompted the air force to airdrop food to them.
The federal government overnight sidelined the archipelago's lieutenant governor, giving the island's most senior military officer the responsibility to streamline "Operation Help" amid growing reports of desperation across the islands.
"The basic aim of the integrated relief command is to synergise relief efforts and to achieve optimal results," Lieut Gen B.S. Thakar said.
Officials said 5,421 people were missing on the islands but they were unwilling to add this number to the country's revised death toll of 14,488.
Many of the missing, they claim, could have survived the tidal waves in the coconut groves that dot the islands.
Authorities in New Delhi had so far confirmed 812 deaths across the entire island chain located some 1200 km east of the mainland.
But India's army chief, Gen N. C. Vij, told reporters that in the worst-hit island of Car Nicobar alone, more than 1,000 corpses lay scattered.
"The momentum is picking up slowly. There are difficulties - bodies have to be spotted and identified," Gen Vij said.
The army was using sniffer dogs to find victims, he added.
But hungry locals manhandled a local government officer in Campbell Bay, the main town in the southernmost Great Nicobar island, where widespread devastation has been reported.
Police had to send reinforcements to deal with the situation.
"The situation in Campbell Bay and Great Nicobar is very grim," a senior island administration official said, admitting that nothing had reached a group of over 700 refugees camped on a hilltop on the islands located on the southern-most tip of the archipelago.
The chain of more than 500 islands that comprise the Andaman and Nicobar archipelago, most of them uninhabited, are dotted with secret military bases and listening posts.
They are also home to hundreds of Stone Age tribespeople with many islands off limits to foreigners and mainland Indians.
A mistrust of outsiders by the military and local bureaucracy has also compromised the aid effort.
Aid workers from foreign relief groups such as Medicins Sans Frontieres of France and Oxfam of the UK, for instance, are stuck in the island's capital Port Blair, unable to reach the badly hit southern islands.
Ruled directly from New Delhi, critics claim the welfare of the locals has always been and remains low on the federal government's priorities.